When scouts watched Peter Bourjos play at Notre Dame High School in Scottsdale, Ariz., theywere curious as to the name of the nervous kid being scouted. They were also curious about the anxious guy standing alone at the foul line.

The latter person was Chris Bourjos, a scout for the Milwaukee Brewers, who’d work himself into a frenzy watching his son play.

“I was always so nervous,” Chris said.

Chris Bourjos recalls a time when he was scouting for the Brewers and he enticed the Brewers scouting director to watch his son hit.

“I couldn’t throw him a strike,” Chris said.

So Peter came up to his dad saying, “C’mon, Dad, you’re choking. Just relax.”

Eventually, a coach from Peter’s high school team rescued Chris and threw a flawless batting practice so Peter could show off his skills.

These days, Chris Bourjos isn’t as nervous, as he watches Peter play center field and lead off for the Quakes.

Peter Bourjos, ranked as the No. 9 Angels prospect by Baseball America, is off to an impressive start, leading the league with nine stolen bases in the first nine games. He was also off to a .297 start at the plate for the Quakes.

He owes a portion of his success to his father.

While growing up, Peter went on several trips a year with his father, who served as a major league scout with the Blue Jays from 1984-2002.

“It was great,” he said. “I got to go to all the ballparks in the West. I think that really helped me.”

Chris Bourjos’ idea initially was just to spend more time with his family. It turned out to be a benefit.

“There’s no question,” Chris said. “He knows what goes on in the clubhouse, and he heard scouts talk. He knew what scouts were like.”

Bourjos wanted to go pro out of high school. It worked out nicely, as the Angels drafted him in the 10th round in 2005 out of Notre Dame, where he also played wide receiver for the football team.

“The Angels are on top of developing high school players,” Chris said. “If he had to play for a team, it’s good it was the Angels.”

Chris himself had a career that included a cup of coffee as an outfielder with the San Francisco Giants in September 1980, his only big league time.

“I was a dead pull hitter and he can hit to all fields,” Chris said of a comparison between the father and son at the same age. “But he’s so much more refined. He understands so much more than I did.”

When Peter started his professional career, he admitted he wasn’t very good at a couple of things that are very important for a leadoff hitter with speed: bunting and stealing bases.

“I was a terrible bunter,” Peter said. “In the beginning, the third baseman would always play back because he would know I couldn’t get the bunt down. I’d just pop it up, bunt it foul, or bunt it right back to the picher.”

“That was probably my fault,” said Chris. “He’d ask me (in high school) if he should bunt, and I’d say, `nah, just swing away.”‘

As for the base stealing, he said he would always get so nervous, and either dive back to first or take off for second on the first movement.

“In high school, he was just so fast, it didn’t matter,” Chris said.

After breaking in, Peter Bourjos batted .292 for rookie-level Orem in 2006, his first pro season, stealing 13 bases. Last year, he missed more than half of the season when he fractured a finger on his left hand, but still batted .274 with 19 stolen bases in 63 games for low Single-A Cedar Rapids in 2007. At Cedar Rapids, the father and son became the first father and son to play at Cedar Rapids.

“That was pretty cool,” Chris said. “I got to throw out the first pitch there at a game.”

Despite having decent, abbreviated seasons the last two years, he’s getting off to an even better start this season to getting the chances.

“(No. 2 hitter) P.J. Phillips has been taking a lot of pitches and I’ve been in some running situations,” Peter Bourjos said.

Pete Marshall started his career as a freelancer for The Sun in 1991, then later was hired full time by the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in 1995. Since then he has covered a variety of sports for the Daily Bulletin and The Sun, primarily high school sports and minor league baseball. He's been doing it long enough that he's now covering the children of student-athletes he covered when he first started.

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